Harvard’s former president, Claudine Gay, offered a blunt assessment of the university’s current administration this month, criticizing it for complying with demands from the Trump White House.
Her remarks, which were given at a conference at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in Amsterdam, were striking in that they appeared to criticize her own successor, Alan Garber.
Dr. Garber served as provost before becoming president. He took over Harvard’s leadership after Dr. Gay resigned in January 2024, under pressure over accusations that she had not been forceful enough in condemning antisemitism on campus and that she had plagiarized in her academic writing. Dr. Gay said then that she had unintentionally used duplicative language.
“The posture of the institution seems to be one of compliance,” Dr. Gay said in an address on Sept. 3, first reported in The Harvard Crimson, the student newspaper on Friday. “This is distressing, not only for those of us who are on campus and facing the consequences directly, but also for all of those in higher ed who look to Harvard for leadership and guidance.”
She implicitly faulted Dr. Garber for being willing to negotiate a $500 million settlement with the White House.
“The number of $500 million is arbitrary, and it will solve nothing,” Dr. Gay said. “There is no justification.”
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The post Harvard’s Former President Criticizes Its Approach to Trump appeared first on New York Times.
